


Ciel is not afraid of his demon.

by mitzvah (Melting)



Series: (my black butler interpretation) [4]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Angst, Canon-typical master/slave dynamics, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, just a big puddle of Hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 13:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5207306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melting/pseuds/mitzvah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> Like this, stone becomes flesh, broken becomes butler.  It is gradual, and it must be coaxed out of the man by his master’s call, but, eventually, Sebastian returns.  The flash of deep red irises, directed towards the stone floor.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Quietly, he asks his demon, “Are you alright, now?”</em>
</p><p>Sebastian is vulnerable, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ciel is not afraid of his demon.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so just gotta say - there are two paragraphs where I use the words "slave" and "master" to refer to these characters. And I kind of want to apologize for that in advance. The Victorian-era prosperity that the Kuroshitsuji franchise idealizes can't be disentangled from the system of chattel slavery and genocide that created it. So it felt really problematic to use these terms in this story.
> 
> But it was necessary, because of the nature of the evolving power-dynamic I was trying to describe. So I just wanted to point them out in advance and kind of acknowledge that they are used purely for their denotation in this story.
> 
> slightly edited 2/22/16 to fix some errors.

Ciel is not afraid of his demon.

There isn’t much to fear, after all, in a dead predator.

Still kneeling at the foot of the armchair, stone-stiff and silent, as the hours pass, and early morning glides up the overcast horizon.  The demon has been reduced to only shards of broken composure, held in place by the tourniquet of the boy’s embrace.  The man isn’t breathing.  He isn’t responding to the nonsense comfort words the boy had been mumbling. 

There isn’t much to fear, in a dead predator.

But maybe he ought to be afraid.  Ciel doesn’t know what ailment has afflicted his demon, nor how long this disorder may last. Shouldn’t he be worried, that his knight is so injured?

With a glance at the window through half-conscious eyes, Ciel realizes that, despite these unknowns, he still isn’t afraid.  The fact that his demon’s unresponsive state has lasted throughout the night and into the following morning does not alarm him.  In fact, he finds that, inexplicably, he feels rather relieved to find himself in the same place as he fell asleep.  Everything is as he left it, including his butler, caged in the warmth of the boy’s arms.

Calmly, and still through a layer of sleepy fog, Ciel finally whispers aloud, “Sebastian.” He brushes dark fringe away from his demon’s shut-tight eyes, “Sebastian, it’s time to start breathing again.”

There is only the faintest flicker of sensation in Ciel’s right eye, but that is enough of a response for now.  Patiently, he touches the pallid skin of the demon’s cheek, gentle as the light of the sun through the cloud cover.

Ciel is familiar with the extremes of human physiology. Anxiety attacks, tantrums, hallucinations, and fits of sorrow are all states of being that Ciel has experienced at one point or another.  In the moment, these episodes tend to feel harrowingly endless, but after the fact Ciel usually discovers that less than an hour of real time has elapsed.  These extreme sensations are brief and intense, by definition.

But Sebastian is not human.  The demon is immortal. 

So isn’t it only natural that, for such a being, these sorts of extreme physiological states would be more drawn out?

It seems natural enough.  So, Ciel is not afraid.

“Sebastian…” Ciel repeats. With the gentle, insistent caress of the boy’s fingers against his cheek, the demon – finally – allows himself a choked-off inhale.  Then he isn’t breathing again, but Ciel is patient.  It’s always harder to let go.

Ciel understands.  At least, he thinks he understands.  He has a sense, intuitively, of Sebastian’s condition.

There’s always that moment before the tears come, and Ciel’s breath catches in his throat. He always wants to hold that breath, because, when he lets go, he’s going to start sobbing.  He doesn’t want to lose control.  But he’s human – he’d suffocate, if he held his breath like that.

Sebastian is another matter.  Demons don’t need to breathe.  And that’s why, that’s why his demon is holding his breath.  He is only trying to prevent his own unravelling.

Perhaps, by now, the danger of said unravelling has passed.

“It’s time to start breathing again.” Ciel repeats, just above a whisper.

His demon obeys.  Exhale. 

Like this, stone becomes flesh, broken becomes butler.  It is gradual, and it must be coaxed out of the man by his master’s call, but, eventually, Sebastian returns.  The flash of deep red irises, directed towards the stone floor.

Quietly, he asks his demon, “Are you alright, now?”

But, just as he speaks, Ciel suddenly pieces together what had happened.

It was a cycle that trapped the demon.  In the beginning, the slave is afraid of the master.  The slave’s fear causes him to psychologically shut down.  The physiological barrier of fear renders the slave unable to respond to the master’s orders. The slave is afraid that the master will punish this disobedience.  The fear of punishment reinforces the physiological barrier.  A positive feedback loop of paralysis.

Not to mention the fact that the slave resents himself for succumbing to the fear, enticing him to prolong his psychological isolation if only to stave off the embarrassment of resurfacing, and then being confronted by the evidence of his own weakness.

The demon remains silent.

There is a knock at the door.  Both earl and butler freeze, and become fully alert at the sound of an unknown presence outside the room, but then they hear Finny’s squeaky “Master Ciel?” through the wall.

Ciel looks back at Sebastian, who doesn’t lift his gaze from the floor.  “Don’t go anywhere,” he says to the demon.

So Ciel stands, and his perspective shifts back into the familiar, where he is short, where he is young.  He goes to the door and opens it only wide enough to greet Finny.

To his credit, Finny seems too nervous to notice that Ciel is still wearing yesterday’s clothes.  “I’m sorry, Master, but no one knows where Mister Sebastian is.  Mister Tanaka is brewing the tea and Baldroy and Mey-Rin are trying to find-”

“Sebastian is out on business, this morning.  I trust you all can at least prepare breakfast without him? Have Tanaka bring up the cart when you’ve finished.  Otherwise, please do not disturb me again.”

“Yes, Master!” Finny shouts, and darts down the hallway a heartbeat later.

Ciel shuts the door, sighs, and turns around. For a moment, he freezes when he sees that the floor in front of the armchair is vacant, but then he sees Sebastian standing by the bed, almost bracing himself against the post of the frame.  The demon’s voice is hollow, almost inaudible.  “I should return to the servant’s quarters-”

“No,” says Ciel, “it’s fine.  You need to rest, and you will rest in my bed.”

“Master,” Sebastian protests in a whisper, “that is _absurd_.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Ciel growls.

The cutaway collar of Sebastian’s dress shirt has wrinkled at some point overnight.  Likewise, his tie is loose, and askew. _This is Sebastian at his lowest._

Reluctantly, the demon sits on the edge of the bed, sinking slightly into the duvet. In his butler’s uniform, and so unkempt, the man seems out of place, and _wrong_ , and… Ciel swallows down these feelings and steps forward.

He has to _physically guide_ Sebastian to lie down proper, with his head rested against the pillow and his work shoes – yes, Ciel doesn’t care that Sebastian is wearing shoes – resting over the duvet at the foot of the bed.  This whole scenario – it is no wonder that the butler is so reluctant. There is something that feels intensely wrong and improper about this situation.  But the wrongness… Ciel would rather this, than the alternative.  “I can tell,” he tells the demon idly.  “I just know it.  The second I let you out of my sight, you’re going to try to run off.”

Sebastian, prone and resigned, neutrally replies, “The contract would make that impossible.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of desperation,” Ciel mutters.  “If a human’s pure desperation can summon a demon, who knows what you might do?”

The demon fixes his eyes on the ceiling and remains silent.

For a moment, Ciel just watches his demon.  The resignation in the monster’s youthful face, and perhaps… perhaps even shame. 

 _His demon,_ his demon whom he wants to help.  Feelings are surfacing in Ciel’s chest that he’d last felt… that he’d last felt when seeing Elizabeth, Aunt Francis, and Aunt Ann for the first time after the fire.  These strange feelings of familial trust toward Sebastian had made him uncomfortable before, because there was no reason to feel that way toward a demon except if the monster were luring you in…  Now, though, Ciel feels resolved.  He isn’t afraid of what he doesn’t understand about the demon.  There’s no point in being afraid.

(Maybe it is a coping mechanism.  Maybe this sense of ease and confidence is a way of picking up the power and control that the demon had unwillingly surrendered.  Maybe his feelings for Sebastian are just a way to delude himself into thinking he and the demon are, in any way, equals.)

The demon’s hair is flattened, slightly splayed against the fabric of the pillow.  His abdomen rises and falls with his breathing. This tangible authenticity of the demon’s human form… always surprises Ciel. 

The young earl follows the perimeter of the bed to the opposite side. Similarly fully outfitted in his day clothes from yesterday, Ciel lies down himself above the duvet, parallel to his butler, and eyes trained toward the ceiling.

From this angle, neither Ciel nor Sebastian can see the other.  They are in each other’s space, they are together looking outwards, upwards.

This is comforting to Ciel.

Foregoing careful deliberation about what he should and shouldn’t say in front of his predator, Ciel says, “There is a part of me that wants to think of you as kin.”  He says this benignly, to the air. “I know, it’s stupid.  But there is a part of me that wants to be able to care for you as I did my family.  The times that I allow myself to pretend, even just for a moment, that you are more than just…well…” Ciel pauses, “It makes me feel so much less alone.” 

The demon doesn’t reply.

Gently, the boy continues, “I don’t know anything about you, or your kind, or your needs.  But I want to understand you.  I want to understand you, even to the point of distraction from my other duties.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Sebastian mutters, drily. But it lacks bite – the demon is still sick with disorder.  He sounds hollow.

“I suppose you would have me focus on my revenge, so you can get rid of me sooner.” Ciel smiles bitterly.  “I wonder, sometimes, if that’s what you think.” he muses, “That I’m focusing on you in a sentimental manner just to distract from the path to my demise?  It’s not a bad theory.  After all, it’s much easier to shamelessly dote on an animal than deal with real responsibility.”

Still breathing at a slow, regular pace, the demon now shuts his eyes, but he still says nothing.

Ciel follows suit, the darkness secure behind his eyelids and the pressure of his headache receding. “That isn’t why, though,” he whispers.  “I think the reason is more that… I summoned you because I lost my family, and you offered me the promise of revenge.  But with the contract, by default, you also offered me _company._ You would never leave me.  You would never...”

Ciel opens his eyes when, outside the window, it begins to rain.  They can hear the sound of intermittent drops hitting the lawn, hitting the window when the angle is right.  It’s just a spring shower, nothing stormy or violent about it.  It makes the room seem less silent.

Ciel turns his body toward the window, to watch the rainfall.  And then he shuts his eyes.

After a sigh, he whispers, “You would never die.”

It is just quiet, like this, for a quarter of an hour or so.  Bittersweet contentedness settles over Ciel.  He still doesn’t know what brought his butler so low, last night, but at least there’s this. At least he can relax and close his eyes for a moment, knowing that Sebastian is here with him, just some thirty centimeters away.  Breathing.

Eventually Tanaka will bring the teacart and breakfast.  Ciel tries not to become too comfortable, because he’s going to have to open the door and appear dignified.  And will Tanaka be able to see Sebastian from the door? Maybe Ciel will exit into the hallway and dismiss Tanaka before bringing the cart inside…

“It may be hard for you to understand now, but death is not a curse, so much as a blessing to humanity.” Sebastian murmurs, breaking the silence.

Ciel remains curled up on his side, facing the window. But he listens.

“Mortality gives humanity a metric with which to assign value to existence.  All human arguments about the right and wrong ways to live derive meaning only from the inevitability of death.”  Sebastian’s voice is clear, smooth.  Controlled.  “For immortal beings, such value is more difficult to discern.  Angels assign meaning to their lives by how closely and efficiently they are able to carry out orders assigned to them by their God.  Reapers assign meaning to their lives by how closely and efficiently they enforce their Law.”

Ciel exhales. The raindrops track tiny rivers down the windowpane.

“But demons have no God or Law.  We have only eternity – vast, empty eternity – and the souls upon which we rely for sustenance.”  Sebastian shifts, very slightly.  Ciel hears the sound of the friction of hair against pillow.  “When you are mortal, your goals are clear.  You must make the most of the time you have alive.  But when you are immortal… what do you strive for? How can you face an interminable, meaningless existence without going mad?”

The wind whistles.  Perhaps a storm is picking up, after all.

“Demons… tend to grapple with this problem by developing an image of themselves, of what and who they ought to be, based on, among other things, aesthetic preferences.  Their aesthetic ideal can be honorable or malicious or deviant – it doesn’t matter, so long as they strive for the perfect execution of this aesthetic ideal.  Like this, they maintain firm self-identity despite a life devoid of existential affirmation.”

Ciel doesn’t think his demon has ever spoken this much before, without prompting.

“But if a demon is forced to act contrary to their self-identity, they risk descent into madness.  They lose sight of their meaning, their purpose.  They forget how to be the person they thought they were, and as a result, they often cease to be a person at all.”

Lying on his back once again, Ciel turns his head to see Sebastian.  The demon’s eyes are still shut as he speaks, evenly.  “I was afraid that the trauma of physical pain would cause such a distortion.  If I succumbed to pain, and showed weakness, I would be lost.  I wouldn’t know how to move forward.”

Here, Sebastian’s voice wavers.  “But I hadn’t the foresight to consider that you could cause just as much destruction… by doing _nothing.”_

“It wasn’t nothing, Sebastian.” Ciel interjects, “I showed you mercy.”

The demon, with shut eyes and gloved fingers curling into fists, asks “How can you call this mercy?” 

“I…” starts Ciel, but he can’t find the words, “I…”

“I am weak.” Sebastian breathes, fangs bared, “I am frightened of a child.  I am acting in my own interest, defensively, despite the contract.  And these things are antithetical to everything I have ever been.”

Ciel wants to reach out and touch, but he restrains himself.  Gives Sebastian his space, and instead tries to parse what the demon has said.  But it doesn’t make sense to Ciel.  “Does it really matter so much to you? You would sooner have undergone _torture,_ than start acting… like a different person?”

“No, Ciel,” The demon says, definitively, “I would sooner have _died.”_

A knock at the door. Ciel jumps at the sound, then stands from the bed to get the cart from Tanaka.  He only lets the door open just enough to pull the cart through, and Tanaka – reliable as always – doesn’t ask any questions.  The old man smiles kindly at Ciel, all wrinkles around the eyes. Eminently mortal.

Ciel shuts the door and, for a moment, stares at the teacart.

It is strange to think that the confident, competent, mischievous Sebastian… doesn’t really exist.  And, with a glance to his butler – now sitting up, but still obediently remaining on the bed – Ciel wonders if there is anything there that is genuine.  If demons live their lives, make their decisions, all in terms of acting the part they’d invented for themselves… an assumed identity… then who is Sebastian? Is there even a “real” person under the surface?

Ciel stares at the teacart.  And he doesn’t know how to pour the tea, and he doesn’t know how much sugar to stir in.

“The contract is still in place,” interjects the demon, still seated at the edge of the bed.  “If you give me an order, Ciel, I will be compelled by the contract to fulfill it-”

“Don’t call me Ciel.” the boy snaps back.

And his sharp tone hangs in the air for a moment.

“That’s not… that’s not who you are, Sebastian.  It doesn’t feel right.”

It’s as if Ciel had hit him. From all the way across the room.  The demon’s eyes are wide, flooded with despair.

 “Yes, master,” is the dull reply.

“Now…” Ciel lifts his chin.  Ruefully, he finally says, “My tea, Sebastian.”

The sun is risen, and the overcast sky leaves the room white with diffuse light, shimmering with the rain.  Hesitating only a moment, Sebastian stands, straightens out his collar and tie.  His eyes carry the utter despair, and he doesn’t smile, but the demon approaches the boy and the teacart.

He prepares the earl’s tea.  And Ciel returns to the bed with the teacup and saucer, seating himself on the edge, near the night table.  And he thinks maybe he is helping the demon, by trying to restore the routine… or maybe he’s just twisting the knife.

“The tenfold clause, Sebastian.  Does it extend to all sensation caused by the contract-holder, or only pain?”

“All sensation, my lord.”

Ciel blows gently to cool the tea, and then sips from the cup.  It is the same as always. It is the same as always.  He glances up at the butler, who is still standing by the cart, resting a gloved hand against the silver contemplatively.  “Sebastian,” Ciel says, “come back here, please.”

The demon is too far gone to do anything but obey.  After putting the teacup on the night table, Ciel pulls Sebastian back down to the bed, so they lie again, side by side, parallel.  But now Ciel has his demon lie on his side, and then… then it’s gentle, child’s fingers combing through the demon’s hair.  Stroking, smoothing, as one might pet a dog.  And the demon’s eyes shut, and he sighs deeply, almost unconsciously. The tension, if only for a moment, unravels completely, and Sebastian doesn’t protest or hesitate.  He takes the pleasure offered to him.  Gratefully.

Maybe that’s the biggest signal that his demon has truly lost himself.

But if what drives demons mad is life devoid of existential affirmation… then, at least as long as he is alive, Ciel can give Sebastian that affirmation.  He can protect him.

Ciel is not afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright - I think I've done all I can with this universe. 
> 
> Now it's up to you.
> 
> I encourage you to take this interpretation of the series, and use it as a foundation for your own works. Anything - poetry, adventure, porn, all of it. I've tried to give definition to a new interpretation of Ciel and Sebastian. I've tried to define further the contract, I've tried to explain each of their motivations. I'm handing over my paintbrush.
> 
> Take the punishment clause and turn it into something dark. What would a more canon-compliant version of Ciel do, if he found out about something like the punishment clause?
> 
> Or write about Ciel's desire to pleasure Sebastian turning sexual. I want to read that.
> 
> Take the reigns. Explore this world. And send me a link if you do! I'm just dying to see a Kuro fandom that explores these ideas.
> 
> And thank you all for your lovely responses. I hope you enjoy this last installment.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [There is More Than This](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5208713) by [Mishka_kitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mishka_kitty/pseuds/Mishka_kitty)
  * [Ciel is not the same.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5223284) by [ShadowTheCannibal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowTheCannibal/pseuds/ShadowTheCannibal)
  * [Kintsugi, or The Aesthetics of Mending](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6634627) by [Tea_and_roses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tea_and_roses/pseuds/Tea_and_roses)




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